New Priest to join Northeast Dartmoor church family

The Reverend Prebendary Susan Sheppard has been appointed Associate Priest with the Northeast Dartmoor church family. Sue’s appointment represents a further step in co-operation between the churches of the Moretonhampstead benefice and their neighbours in the southern part of the Whiddon Team, followingthe licensing last March of the Reverend Paul Seaton-Burn as Interim Priest-in-Charge of Moretonhampstead, Manaton, North Bovey and Lustleigh within the emerging mission community of the North Dartmoor Parishes.

Sue is presently part-time Staff Tutor for Devon on the South West Ministry Training Course (SWMTC), one of the regional Church of England colleges responsible for the formation and training of clergy and lay ministers. She has served in a number of roles in SWMTC over the past fifteen years, including Acting Principal and Director of Initial Ministerial Education Phases 1-3, and in her previous ministry was Chaplain of St Peter’s C. of E. High School in Exeter.

Alongside her work with SWMTC, Sue currently serves as self-supporting Associate Minister in the NetherexeParishes, a rural mission community of eight parishes and ten churches near Exeter. She was appointed an honorary Prebendary of Exeter Cathedral in 2011.

Working together with Paul, Sue will serve as Associate Priest in the parishes on a half-time basis while in the other half of her time, continuing to teach and support candidates for ministry in her ongoing role as Staff Tutor with SWMTC.

Sue and her husband Guy, proprietor of the Exe Valley Brewery in mid-Devon, will move to Moretonhampstead Rectory in the autumn and subject to the completion of all legalities, the Bishop of Plymouth will license Sue during a service at which all be welcome in St Andrew’s, Moretonhampstead on Thursday, October 8th at 7pm.